15 Nov 2007

Etruscan Dictionary Draft 004 now available

The deadline is upon me, November 15, and you know what that means! Yes! That crazy Glen has another update for you on my Etruscan Dictionary project (now with 942 items)! So here it is for everyone free to download. Just follow the eSnips icon below:


Draft_004_15Nov2007
Draft_004_15Nov200...
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Organizing data is like a twisted sort of hobby for me, in addition to comparative linguistics and dead languages. I find that this is a learning process for me too because the more organized I get, the more I realize what I still need to know. Organization makes gaps in knowledge more obvious. There are so many things to think of, like how to organize a language into a coherent structure. Making a dictionary like this is not that simple but I brought this on myself willingly.

A big issue still is what is an appropriate grammatical model for Etruscan. I have to be honest, I'm still trying to wade through all of the published contradictions. None of the gurus in Etruscan studies seem to have a firm grasp of it either. Simple things are known, such as, the subject and direct object are given zero marking while genitive nouns which describe ownership or attribution are given -s or -l depending on their "gender" which I've marked as Type I or Type II respectively in my pdf. We know for sure that the past perfect gets -ce added to the verb stem. And that's about it. However, when Etruscologists are confronted with something more complex like spureś-treś as found in the Liber Linteus (from spur 'city'), then you'll find that there's a big blank where an answer should be.

This is all complex business but I'll continue to be ranting about this subject for some time to come. I haven't run out of things to discuss, believe me. But anyways, As always, enjoy!

UPDATES
(Nov 15, 2007) I caught a duplicate of cvil in my pdf, that dirty rotten whippersnapper. How did that slippery little fellah get in there? Blargh! Maybe I need to program a special function to stop that. Oh well. It's purged from my database and we'll see how things fare in Draft 005.
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2 comments:

  1. regis4 February 2011 at 15:14:00 GMT-6

    Glen hi
    I joined your blog today; I have been looking as an independent for several months on some very limited specific Etruscan/Roman things, building up slowly, and I found your very interesting, open and mind-stirring views, even when a bit mordant; I printed your dictionary draft today; I was looking for the existence of some precise noun or verb form I had deduced from my investigations, and I was indeed very interested to find it in your list, and that is the one that reads "Өaχs"; when ready I would like to submit some thoughts to your judgment
    regards

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  2. Glen Gordon8 February 2011 at 20:54:00 GMT-6

    Glad you're enjoying the blog. I'll take mordant as a badge of honour since relevancy is more valuable than popularity. As for "submitting" ideas to me, it's the net: either share a thought with the world or don't. Needlessly building suspense like this makes it sound as though even you don't believe in your own hypothesis.

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